connecting*the*dots

From Media Matters:

Melanie Morgan, Lee Rodgers, Rush Limbaugh, and John Gibson all forwarded the accusation made by a website controlled by Rev. Sun Myung Moon that Sen. Hillary Clinton was responsible for spreading information linking Sen. Barack Obama to a madrassa, or Muslim school. None of the four cited any evidence, other than the article, that Clinton was responsible for promoting the madrassa story, and the article cited no one by name.

Below is a clip from The Big Story with John “War on Christmas” Gibson, where Gibson reports on Hillary Clinton “playing the Muslim-phobia card” and holds a conversation with the “level-headed” Republican strategist, Terry Holt.

These guys couldn’t hide a fart in a Trojan Horse.

Here’s my play-by-play breakdown of the clip:

• Charge Hillary Clinton with dirty tactics (from a non-sourced article, published on a right-wing nut job’s website)
• “Expose” Obama being a “Muslim” and being educated at a “madrasa” (after he talked about going to a Muslim school as a child and being a Christian in his book, The Audacity of Hope, which was released earlier this year)
• “Innocently” provide context that a madrasa wasn’t radical 40 years ago (while the rest of Fox News runs with the story as if it were exposing something relevant for American voters to chew on)
• Completely forget to include the fact that Obama was barely out of diapers at the time of his schooling
• Repeat that Clinton is playing political hardball because the American public “knows what a madrasa means” (again, while the rest of Fox hard-sells the ties to terrorists)
• Refuse to explain that The Washington Times is not the same as the “left-leaning” Washington Post (classifications in this culture war that most Americans might confuse rather easily)
• Cry innocent by stating that exposing a cigarette smoker is nothing like this form of political dirty work (while the rest of the network piles on the significance of this insignificant fact)

What’s the result?

An uniformed American public swallowing this story hook, line and sinker, creating doubt with Barak Obama and more venom directed at Hillary Clinton, adding to her baggage — perceived or otherwise.

Until sources are named outside of Insight.com’s word, I’ll file this under Republican Noise Machine.

Fox News isn’t biased; they’re a major part of the spin cycle.

UPDATE: CNN completely debunks the charges — both that Hillary Clinton outed Obama and that Barak Obama attended a “radical madrasa.” They even sent a reporter to Jakarta to show the normalcy of the school on tape. The best line out of Wolf Blitzer’s mouth following the ridiculous clips from Fox News?:

CNN did what any serious news organization is supposed to do in this kind of a situation. We actually conducted an exclusive, first-hand investigation, inside Indonesia, to check out the kind of school Barack Obama attended as a little six year-old boy.

Guess what happened next? Fox News swallowed their story. Lying bastards.

Louis Farrakhan spoke at Syracuse University in 1989. At the time, all I knew of Farrakhan was his position as the leader of The Nation of Islam, his rumored role in the assassination of Malcolm X and the paragraph quotes, characterizing him as an anti-Semite. Upon deciding to listen to him speak, I ended up being one of about 10 white people within the auditorium (the others being pledges sent on a cruel stunt by one of the rich boy fraternities). I decided to attend because I don’t believe much until I experience it first hand, and, well, college is supposed to be the grounds for learning.

Quite frankly, over two hours, Farrakhan was nothing but eloquent, moving, empowering and righteous. There were no hints of Antisemitism, as he seemed 100% concerned with uplifting African-Americans in America. There wasn’t even a subtle push to join The Nation. And all the time my roommates and I listened to him speak, people protested outside, refusing to hear his words from his mouth.

Until today, I had shied away from posting about the passing of Rosa Parks… and then I watched her funeral service last night on C-Span. Do yourself a favor and listen to this speech. Louis Farrakhan captures the essence of the civil rights movement in his 10 minute speech and bridges time to reflect upon where we all need to go today… following the footprints of Rosa Parks.

Other poignant speeches:
Bill Clinton
John Conyers
Bishop T.D. Jakes
Barack Obama
Al Sharpton

(via freep)

UPDATE: Historically, Farrakhan has been very exclusionary regarding the inclusion of gay and lesbian struggles for equal rights. He talked the talk regarding inclusion leading up to the Millions More March, but there were still acts of exclusion on the day of the march.

No one claiming to be an activist in the spirit of Rosa Parks would separate any group of human beings, based on any factor, from the Civil Rights movement. Or, as John Conyers put it, “Civil Rights has morphed into the Human Rights movement.”